But those things were just fantasy; in reality, all Jacob could do was hear her. How lucky for him that she was never silent. After a few awkward moments of quiet at the beginning of their walk, Eve had started up this odd, humming lilt, the same snatch of a tune repeated again and again in slightly different ways. It was a habit of hers, a vocal tic he’d gotten used to. But now, on his way to Aunt Lucy’s—on his way to lose Eve, just a little bit—Jacob found himself desperate to understand everything she did rather than simply enjoying it.

So he asked on an ill-advised rush of curiosity, “What are you doing?”

At his question, Eve looked up sharply. Almost guiltily. “Sorry,” she said. She was so on edge, now. Ever since—well, ever since. It was obviously his fault, and the knowledge squeezed at his lungs.

That tightness, that lack of air, made his next words come out clipped. “I didn’t say to apologize. I said, what are you doing?”

Predictably, his sharpness chased the embarrassment from her eyes. Now she looked pissed off with him, which he far preferred. “You said I could sing. You even said it was better to sing than to wear the AirPods. I told you it would be annoying.”

“I don’t find it annoying.” Which was the truth. He found it . . . familiar.

“You don’t find it annoying?” she echoed skeptically, one eyebrow arched.

“That’s what I said.” Jacob paused, considering his next words. He wasn’t sure if he should say them; after all, this woman wasn’t his business, not in the way he wanted her to be. Restless, he even pulled out his phone, hoping for a distraction that would stop him from speaking. No new notifications. Nothing particularly interesting on his live video feed of the cottage. Fine.

He put his phone away, and next thing he knew, the question he’d been avoiding slipped out. “Have you ever heard of stimming?”

She kicked a twig onto the grassy path beside them, then tipped back her head to squint at the low-hanging sun. “I don’t know. Maybe. Remind me what it is?”

Jacob allowed himself a moment to watch the fall of her hair, the way one fine lavender braid caught and coiled in the soft space between her neck and her shoulder, before dragging his gaze away. “It’s a kind of . . . repetitive action, to find comfort or focus or self-stimulate. Lots of autistic people do it.”

“Oh,” she said. There was a pause. “Well, if you want to . . . stim, go for it. I don’t mind. I’m never going to mind.”

Jacob blinked, then narrowed his eyes. She thought—she was giving him permission to—? He didn’t know whether to be pleased or pissed.

Not pleased. Pleased is not allowed.

Fine, then: pissed. “I don’t need permission to be myself, nor would I ever ask you for it.” He’d grown out of that the hard way.